At the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907, a draft convention for a permanent Court of Arbitral Justice was written although disputes and other pressing business at the Conference meant that such a body was never established, owing to difficulties agreeing on a procedure to select the judges.

[7] The court first sat on 30 January 1922, at the Peace Palace, The Hague, covering preliminary business during the first session (such as establishing procedure and appointing officers) Nine judges sat, along with three deputies, since Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirven, Ruy Barbosa and Wang Ch'ung-hui were unable to attend, the last being at the Washington Naval Conference.

[11] During its first year of business, the court issued three advisory opinions, all related to the International Labour Organization created by the Treaty of Versailles.

Ernest Pollock, the former Attorney General for England and Wales said, "May we not as lawyers regard the establishment of an International Court of Justice as an advance in the science that we pursue?"

John Henry Wigmore said that the creation of the court "should have given every lawyer a thrill of cosmic vibration", and James Brown Scott wrote that "the one dream of our ages has been realised in our time".

[13] Much praise was heaped upon the appointment of an American judge despite the fact that the United States had not become a signatory to the court's protocol, and it was thought that it would soon do so.

[16] A replacement for Ruy Barbosa (who had died on 1 March 1923 without hearing any cases) was also found, with the election of Epitácio Pessoa on 10 September 1923.

[20] Judicial pensions were created at the same time, with a judge being given 1/30th of his annual pay for every year he had served once he had both retired and turned 65.

[26] Despite the reduction of work in 1926, 1927 was another busy year, the court sitting continuously from 15 June to 16 December, handing down 4 orders, 4 judgments and 1 advisory opinion.

[33] Replacements for Moore and Finlay were elected on 19 September 1929; Henri Fromageot and Cecil Hurst respectively.

[36] President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not risk his political capital and gave only passive support even though a two-thirds vote of approval was needed in the Senate.

[38] The United States finally accepted the court's jurisdiction on 28 December 1935, but the treaty was never ratified, and the U.S. never joined.

[39] Francis Boyle attributes the failure to a strong isolationist element in the US Senate, arguing that the ineffectiveness shown by US nonparticipation in the court and other international institutions could be linked to the start of the Second World War.

[41] This period was marked by growing international tension, however, with Japan and Germany announcing their withdrawal from the League of Nations, to come into effect in 1935.

Following the German invasion of the Netherlands, the court was unable to meet although the registrar and president were afforded full diplomatic immunity.

[55] The judges served for a period of nine years, with their term limits all expiring at the same time, necessitating a completely new set of elections.

As a sign of their independence from national ties, judges were given full diplomatic immunity when engaged in court business.

On the first vote, Rafael Altamira y Crevea of Spain, Dionisio Anzilotti of Italy, Bernard Loder of the Netherlands, Ruy Barbosa of Brazil, Yorozu Oda of Japan, André Weiss of France, Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirven of Cuba and Lord Finlay of the United Kingdom were elected by a majority vote of both the Council and Assembly on the first ballot taken.

The second ballot elected John Bassett Moore of the United States, and the sixth Didrik Nyholm of Denmark and Max Huber of Switzerland.

[58] As the deputy judges, Wang Ch'ung-hui of China, Demetre Negulesco of Romania and Mihailo Jovanović of Yugoslavia were elected.

The Assembly and Council disagreed on the fourth deputy judge, but Frederik Beichmann of Norway was eventually appointed.

[63] The full court was Urrutia, Mineichiro Adachi, Rafael Altamira y Crevea, Dionisio Anzilotti, Bustamante, Willem van Eysinga, Henri Fromageot, José Gustavo Guerrero, Cecil Hurst, Edouard Rolin-Jaequemyns, Frank B. Kellogg, Negulesco, Michał Jan Rostworowski, Walther Schücking and Wang Ch'ung-hui.

Once this was done, a committee of four, including the president, the registrar and two judges elected by secret ballot, drafted a final judgment, which was then voted on by the entire court.

Goodrich interprets that as indicating that the drafters intended a purely advisory capacity for the court, not a binding one.

[76] In practice, advisory opinions were usually followed, mostly due to the fear that if this "revolutionary" international court's decisions were not followed, it would undermine its authority.

[79] When the court met for its initial session, opened on 30 January 1922 to allow for the establishment of procedure and the appointment of court officials, the secretary-general of the League of Nations passed an emergency resolution through the Assembly, which designated an official of the league and his staff as the registrar and registry respectively,[80] with the first registrar being Åke Hammarskjöld.

In 1927, the post of deputy-registrar was created, tasked with dealing with legal research for the court and answering all diplomatic correspondence received by the registry.

[83] The first deputy-registrar was Paul Ruegger; after his resignation on 17 August 1928, Julio Lopez Olivan was selected to succeed him.

[91] The Copying Department comprised shorthand, typing and copying services, and included secretaries for the registrar and judges, emergency reporters capable of taking notes down verbatim and copyists; the smallest of the departments, it comprised between 12 and 40 staff depending on the business of the court.

[96] The proviso that the court was for disputes that could not "be satisfactorily settled by diplomacy" never made it require evidence that diplomatic discussions had been attempted before bringing the case.